Makinde wants Nigeria’s tertiary education refocused to produce more job creators

The governor of Oyo State, Seyi Makinde, has asked that education in Nigeria be redefined and rechanneled towards producing entrepreneurs and not just job seekers.

He said citadels of learning in the country turn out hundreds of thousands of youths as graduates yearly but they end up chasing shadows in the course of searching for jobs.

Governor Makinde made this remark as a special guest of honour at the opening of a five-day national train-the-trainer workshop, themed ‘Outcome-oriented Entrepreneurship Education in Nigerian Tertiary Institutions’, organised and jointly hosted by the University of Ibadan Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETeL), Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI), and UI Business School (UISB).

“Entrepreneurship does not only entail starting a business and making money, but a special way in which people are creative, innovative and try to solve myriads of problems that emanate from our ever-dynamic society by creating value additions,” he noted.

He stated that youths in the country have roles to play by renewing and refreshing the current status of the society in terms of leadership, creativity and innovations.

The vice chancellor, Professor Idowu Olayinka, who chaired the conference, in his address stated that entrepreneurship education “offers students the transversal skills which increase their employability rate and most importantly imbue them with the capacity for imaginative thinking.”

He said, “In recognition of the distinctive roles of entrepreneurship education in individual and collective development capacities, the University of Ibadan in 2007 set up the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI).

“The centre has been responsible for teaching and research in entrepreneurship and innovation.”

He lauded the organs of the university responsible for the organisation of the workshop for their efforts.

The keynote speaker at the event, Professor Ayotola Aremu, while speaking on the theme of the conference said entrepreneurship is a kind of education that is fashioned out to prepare learners for innovative inventions, which lead to self-reliance and economic emancipation.

While emphasizing the need for an outcome-based entrepreneurship education at all levels of education, she noted that entrepreneurship is not about generating ideas or making money but having entrepreneurial thinking, attitudes or mindset.

She recommended that every educator, teacher or lecture must be trained on entrepreneurial building.

In his remarks, the director, CETeL, Professor Akin Odebunmi, noted that while the relevance of entrepreneurship programmes in tertiary institutions is not in doubt, there is an urgent need to further inject programmes with more practice-oriented contents “which are derived from a deep blend of theoretical knowledge and field-shuffled, success-shaped experiences that have survived miles of entrepreneurial adventures.”